Frank Mulligan: Snow you didn’t

It’s been known by many names: Flake. Powder. White death. Precipitation’s evil stepchild.

Frank Mulligan

It’s been known by many names: Flake. Powder. White death. Precipitation’s evil stepchild.

We know it as snow, and this dread meteorological phenomenon plagues this area with seemingly seasonal regularity.

It’s been said the Inuit Eskimos have more than 100 words for snow, yet it’s a fact they have only one word for antihistamine.

I think my meaning is clear.

It seems like every year when the weather turns cold, snow falls in New England making driving difficult, hiking treacherous and cliff diving out of the question.

When is some clear-thinking leader going to step forward and do something about it? Where’s Arlen Specter when you need him? Or anyone named Arlen for that matter?

Certainly, the subject is out in the open. As I write this on a bright Sunday morning I merely have to swivel 180 degrees in my chair to look out the window, and see the entire area covered with the stuff. If I swivel 270 degrees I can see a cluttered and debris-littered desk badly in need of clearing, perhaps by shovel or a controlled explosive charge, but that’s another matter entirely.

Despite its prevalence, many people have trained themselves to look the other way, to ignore the stuff. They walk over it, shovel through it, drive over it – moderating their speed and maneuvering – and adjust to its milky, eerie presence.

This is a huge mistake.

Would you ignore a brush fire surrounding your home? Would you ignore a snarling pack of wolves in your front yard? Would you ignore rising flood waters unless you were a ranking official with the Federal Emergency Management Agency?

I rather think not.

There is the insidious melting factor, of course. One day the snow is there, defiantly covering all objects in view, including loved ones if they’re prone to remaining immobile for lengthy periods.

The next day – providing it’s warm – it’s gone.

Given the frailties of human nature, many prefer to believe the crisis has ended and refuse to acknowledge the ugly reality that snow will be back, as haughty and tyrannical as ever.

And there are those who will say they enjoy snow. That it’s “fun.”

But, of course, there are also those who enjoy watching animals fight to the death, explicit natural-disaster footage, or the current season of “American Idol.”

It takes all kinds of deli meats to make a platter.

To those of you who think snow is fun, ponder this: Is it fun to fashion rounded projectiles out of a substance and then fling them at middle-aged men on the street?

I rather think not.

So let us rally together and put an end to snow in our day, before it affects our children and our children’s children, and our children’s children’s children.